One of its selling points is that it provides opportunities for various celebrities to post updates, and popular celebrities like Amitabh Bachchan and Priyanka Chopra are among its users, and the number of followers on their accounts nearly rival their Twitter followers.

India is the first country where the application is being launched and it is available for free download and trial from the Apple India App store for 30 days, post which there will be a one-time fee of 2.99$ to get celebrity updates, and none to get updates from friends.

Bubbly currently has about 15 million unique users across Asia, and the app is expected to make it easier to use. An Android app is also currently being developed, and plans to add photo and video capability as well are being considered.

Users can customise their feed by selecting what kind of posts show up – news updates, announcements, reports or analysis posts. They can also choose whether to get updates from the community or from experts only, and can create lists of portfolios or accounts that they want to track.

Users can currently sign-up for ET Speed using their Facebook or Twitter log-ins or any e-mail ID.

The Google+ brand pages were first launched in November 2011, and in December 2011, the top 100 brands had a total of 220,000 followers. In February 2012, this number has increased by 1400% to 3.1 million. They however, appear to be concentrated in the top 10 brands, with these top 10 brands having ten times as many followers as those brands ranked 11-100.

Even though these numbers are still small compared to Facebook, with Google alone having nearly 7 million ‘likes’ on its Facebook page, most brands in the top 100 have pages on both platforms. Some brands which are conspicuous by their absence on Google+ are Apple and Microsoft, among others.

Does your brand have a Google+ page? Do you think Google+ page results showing up prominently in the new ‘Search plus Your World’ Google search feature is reason enough to have a presence on Google+? Share your thoughts on this with us.

What is Pinterest? Pinterest is a social network where users can pin pictures of things that they like on their account. These pictures, or ‘Pins’ as they are called, can be categorised into boards and can be freely ‘liked’, commented upon, and re-pinned by other users.

Why has it caught everyone’s attention? The major reasons behind Pinterest’s success are firstly, that it is an intensely visual site, and the layout is very attractive – it draws people in. Secondly, the creators of the site have made it exceedingly easy for people for pin pictures to their profile, they’ve come up with a ‘Pin It’ button that can be added to your browser, and then you can use it to pin images from any web page that you are on. The button application automatically scans possible pictures on the page and displays them all so that you can choose which one to pin, which board to pin it to, and add a short comment, if needed.

Who is using it? Several brands have already assessed the potential of Pinterest, and are making very good use of it to increase curiousity and attract traffic to their products. Here are some of the brands who are successfully using Pinterest, and what makes them good at it:

• Whole Foods Market : A natural and organic products brand, they have 22 boards on Pinterest, organised into categories like ‘Winter Holiday Favourites’ and ‘Creative Christmas Projects’, and are followed by over 14,000 people. They are active on the site, regularly put up new pins, and frequently re-pin pictures put up by other users, as well as comment on them, thus fostering engagement. They also go beyond selling their products, as evidenced by their boards which show a variety of different, as well as interesting topics. It is of utmost importance to be seen as a brand which is not just there to market its own products, but to provide some value for the community, by creating a database of things that users love.

]]> http://www.indiasocial.in/how-brands-are-successfully-engaging-users-on-pinterest/feed/ 0 http://www.indiasocial.in/facebook-to-launch-timeline-for-brands/ http://www.indiasocial.in/facebook-to-launch-timeline-for-brands/#comments Fri, 17 Feb 2012 10:35:25 +0000 Kanksha Barman http://www.indiasocial.in/?p=2605 [ ... ]]]> Another feature for brands on Facebook that is seeming likely to be launched at the first-ever Facebook Marketer’s Conference in New York on February 29, is the Timeline view for brands. First announced in September 2011, the Timeline feature has been a point of great contention among Facebook users – with some being wowed by it, and others demanding the old view back –  the major issue being with the fact that the Timeline displays information about a user’s profile right from the his/her birth.

If the Timeline for brands also has the same capability, it would mean that the brand pages would be able to showcase the entire history of the brand, and in some cases like Coca-Cola, this could mean going back over a 100 years! It is a chance to show viewers exactly how a brand has developed and evolved over the years.

Since Twitter and Google+ have already come up with specialised brand pages, advertisers seeking something especially tailor-made for brands will pick them as a platform over Facebook, and Timeline pages could be one way to counter that.

The Timeline pages are also photo-heavy, and well-structured, so brands can make use of innovative and creative designs and customise layouts to make their pages look really eye-catching and attractive. Mashable takes a look at possible ways for brands to make their page striking.

Facebook has already encouraged developers to come up with apps that have functions which go beyond just the regular ‘like’. So the Pinterest app creates stories for a new ‘pin’, Spotify app for a new ‘listen’, and Washington Post app for a new ‘read’. Facebook has agreed to feature these actions in the live ticker in the news feed, so that they show up in real time.

There is hence, immense potential for brands to create customised actions that fit in with the content of their page.

Do you think the Timeline feature will be good for brands? How will your brand utilise it for maximum effect? Share with us.

The travel and tourism industry is one that is heavily dependent on word-of-mouth publicity and the spread of opinions. Statistics show that travellers trust fellow travellers, and people are much more likely to try out a particular destination or restaurant if someone in their circle has recommended it. Facebook and Twitter are the foremost platforms that people use to air their views and share their experiences related to travel, along with personal blogs and dedicated forums.

The MindShift report tracked 19,025 mentions of travel-related subjects in conversations across various social networking websites during the time of one month.

Airlines clearly dominate the conversations with 56% of the share, mostly due to various recent crises such as debt & bailout, safety issues and staff concerns amongst various airlines. With such a huge chunk of conversations revolving around them, airline brands need to step up, address and try to regulate the flow of conversation in a positive direction.

This study by Conversocial undertaken in United States reports that 78 percent respondents believe that communicating with companies through the medium of social media is either, already the primary way, or will be so in the future.

In the Conversocial study entitled ‘The Consequences of Ignoring your Customers’, a  comprehensive online questionnaire was completed by 513 respondents, who were reached through their social networking profiles, forums or email.The questionnaire consisted of 9 questions  to understand the condition of customer satisfaction with current corporate attitudes on social media sites. Respondents reside in large metropolitan areas of the United States, and are of an average age 38 years.

Most people spend a very large chunk of time online on Facebook or Twitter, and thus find it very easy and convenient to reach out to a company on the same platform.

A Facebook poll also reported that one third of people after seeing a ‘Like’ for a particular brand on their friend’ profiles, actively research the brand page.  Conversations on a brand page are thus a vital testimonial about the state of its customer service.

• 27.3 percent respondents said that they expect a company’s brand page to offer news, discounts and other offers; 9.6 percent said that they should be listening to customers praise and complaints; and 63.2 said said they expected both. A company can definitely not afford to ignore the expectations of three-fourth of the consumers

“Growth in use of Facebook through our mobile products, where we do not currently display ads, as a substitute for use on personal computers may negatively affect our revenue and financial results.”

So, rumours of mobile ads being introduced should come as no surprise.

The Financial Times reported recently that advertisements on mobile platforms are expected to begin showing as early as March, before the IPO goes public. Sources familiar with Facebook suggest that they are already in talks with various advertisers to introduce ‘featured stories’ which will display in the users’ news feeds on the mobile site. Brands will be able to pay to have users’ interactions with them on the brand pages highlighted as ‘sponsored stories’.

Twitter has already done something similar with the ‘promoted tweets’ which show up in users’ timelines like regular tweets. The feature is being rolled out slowly and is not visible to all users yet. Twitter has faced a certain amount of backlash and it is likely that Facebook will too, as most people feel that the mobile platform is too small to take ads.

Here Facebook begins the journey of trying to balance the interests of its 845 million users, with its shareholders who expect rapid revenue growth.

Several new features for brands are expected to be unveiled on February 29 in New York, where Facebook is holding a conference for marketers, as it tries to encourage brands that are currently using Facebook for free, to switch to paid promotions.

Do you think mobile advertisements will be successful? How will your brand capitalise on this opportunity? Share with us.